Tuesday, October 20, 2015

DAL PRICES HIT THE ROOF



The relief common man felt with the onion prices coming down was short-lived as dal prices have skyrocketed now. Tur is in the range of `180190 per kg, and urad dal is quoted at `190200 per kg. If the situation continues, pulses and lentils which is a staple Indian diet might soon become a luxury item. THE PRICE RISE WAS EXPECTED
The unseasonal hail storms and damage to crops due to erratic monsoons in the lentil producing areas like Nagpur, Latur, Dhule, Jalna and pockets of South India like Karnataka and Marathwada, saw very less production . The next crop is due only by the end of December and till then the rise in price is imminent with no relief expected.
Food grain merchants and retailers say that they had already anticipated the price rise couple of months back since it has been a steady rise for the past few months and the lack of remedial measures at the right time lead to this situation.
Manikbhai, a retailer from Andheri says, “The price rise started in July this year with a steady increase leading to this day. If proper measures would have been undertaken to control the price rise at the early stages it would not have blown to this proportion.
DIFFICULT TIMES FOR FESTIVAL
While the daily serving of dal can be avoided, it is impossible to avoid it during festivals to make traditional sweets like moong dal halwa and puran poli amongst others. “During festivals we have guests at home and some of the festive dishes also include dal as an ingredient but now with the rise in prices I think we will have to do without them or just bear the burden,“ says Shanta Kumari expecting a further increase in prices.
A CHANGE IN MENU
While there is no replacement for dals, housewives have found a solution by replacing it with eggs, chicken or paneer so that the family gets the required amount of protein. “One kilo chicken costs as much as a kilo of tur dal, so I try to make chicken or fish more often these days as it is highly cost effective. We have now adapted to having it just twice a week,“ claims Shanta Kumari, a housewife from Goregaon.Bachelors who could do with cooking the easy dal-chawal daily have replaced it with egg and paneer. “We like to have a homemade meal at least once a day and making different dals with chawal was an easy option to cook for dinner. But now we make egg curry which turns out to be a much cheaper and tastier option than dal,“ says Ankit Jha from Bandra who shares an apartment with two other bachelors.Urad dal is an essential ingredient for making dosas. While restaurants have not yet resorted to any change in prices, shops selling dosa batter have made a marginal increase per kilo and small time dosa makers too have decided to increase the price of dosas for the time being.



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